Regional planning in a decentralized state

The early-modern Netherlands continue to inspire interesting historical scholarship on environmental regulation (see, e.g. here). Last year's Environment and History had an article by Milja van Tielhof, "Regional Planning in a Decentralised State: How Administrative Practices contributed to Consensus-Building in Sixteenth-Century Holland". The abstract:
This article examines how a regional drainage system in the northern part of Holland in the Late Middle Ages could emerge despite the fact that the weak central state was hardly able to provide the necessary coordination nor prevent free-riding. Institutions, defined as rules and norms, including practices, procedures and techniques, play a key role in the argument. Four traditional administrative practices are identified as essential to the emergence of regional water control: a broad consultation process, by which opponents of new plans were also heard; landowners giving their explicit consent to plans and their costs; the proportional division of the costs; and the use of compensation for damage suffered. These practices respected local autonomy and broadened the level of support among the local stakeholders. The effectiveness of the practices was strengthened when they were used in combination with a technique provided by the Habsburg state: the enqueste or inquiry. This was a technique for gathering reliable, relevant and detailed information at the local and regional level. In this case study, the information on landscape and water use, collected by the 1544 Commission of Inquiry, facilitated cooperation between communities that enjoyed a high degree of self-governance.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital library IV: Bartolus's Tractatus de fluminibus seu Tyberiadis

Image
After beginning the digital library of historical environmental law with works from the last few hundred years, we go back in time this week to the fourteenth century and the  Tractatus de fluminibus seu Tyberiadis  (1355,  1576 edition (source of the images in this post) here ) of the great medieval Italian jurist Bartolus of Saxoferrato. As Bartolus explained at the beginning of the work, he was inspired to write the book while on vacation near Perugia, despite his attempts to enjoy his vacation and stay away from legal scholarship: This river [Tiber]... circles that splendid mountain on which the city of Perugia is situated and while flowing a great distance through its district, the river itself is bordered by plains, hills and similar places. These places are also well inhabited, enhanced with many beautiful buildings and luscious orchards bearing lots of fruit. Thus, when I was resting from my lecturing and in order to relax, was travelling towards a certain villa situated near ...
Read more

The earliest boundary water treaty

Image
Figure 1:  Memorial cone of the Mesilim Treaty Thanks to Peter Sand for contributing this post! [Footnotes after the jump.] The Musée du Louvre in Paris holds tangible evidence of the world’s first known legal agreement on boundary water resources: viz., the Mesilim Treaty , concluded in the 25th century B.C. between the two Mesopotamian states of Lagash and Umma . The terms of the treaty have been preserved as cuneiform inscriptions on a limestone cone (figure 1) and a stele commemorating Lagash’s victorious battle enforcing the treaty.[1] Fragments of both artifacts were excavated in 1878-1912 by French archeologists on sites at Tellō ( Tall Lawh, Dhi Qar Governate in Southern Iraq), the ancient temple-city of Girsu, once the capital of Lagash.[2] The inscriptions, transcribed and translated into French, German, Italian and English,[3] turned out to match several other texts on corresponding archeological finds of the period. The key exhibit, the so-called ‘Stele of the Vultures’, d...
Read more

Before Trump

Image
Today's "This Day in Water History" has this: Judson Harmon, c. 1912 June 11, 1895: First day of tenure of Judson Harmon as U.S. Attorney General. “Harmon issued the most explicit statement of what became known as the American doctrine of absolute sovereignty, that “the rules, principles and precedents of international law impose no liability or obligation upon the United States,” in a case involving a claim by Mexico for damages from diverting the waters of the Rio Grande.” Or, as one source put it: “US Attorney General Judson Harmon tells Mexico that the US will ‘do whatever it pleases’ with water from the Rio Grande.” Commentary: Even for those days, this was a pretty amazing statement.
Read more